SparkNotes: Great Expectations: Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Ambition and Self-Improvement The moral theme of Great Expectations is quite simple: affection, loyalty, and conscience are more important than social advancement, wealth, and class. Dickens establishes the theme and shows Pip learning this lesson, largely by exploring ideas of ambition and self-improvement—ideas that quickly become both the thematic center of the novel and the psychological mechanism that encourages much of Pip’s development. At heart, Pip is an idealist; whenever he can conceive of something that is better than what he already has, he immediately desires to obtain the improvement. When he sees Satis House, he longs to be a wealthy gentleman; when he thinks of his moral shortcomings, he longs to be good; when he realizes that he cannot read, he longs to learn how. Pip’s desire for self-improvement is the main source of the novel’s title: because he believes in the possibility of advancement in life, he has “great expectations” about his future.

Ambition and self-improvement take three forms in Great Expectations—moral, social, and educational; these motivate Pip’s best and his worst behavior throughout the novel. First, Pip desires moral self-improvement. He is extremely hard on himself when he acts immorally and feels powerful guilt that spurs him to act better in the future. When he leaves for London, for instance, he torments himself about having behaved so wretchedly toward Joe and Biddy. Second, Pip desires social self-improvement. In love with Estella, he longs to become a member of her social class, and, encouraged by Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook, he entertains fantasies of becoming a gentleman. The working out of this fantasy forms the basic plot of the novel; it provides Dickens the opportunity to gently satirize the class system of his era and to make a point about its capricious nature. Significantly, Pip’s life as a gentleman is no more satisfying—and certainly no more moral—than his previous life as a blacksmith’s apprentice. Third, Pip desires educational improvement. This desire is deeply connected to his social ambition and longing to marry Estella: a full education is a requirement of being a gentleman.

As long as he is an ignorant country boy, he has no hope of social advancement. Pip understands this fact as a child, when he learns to read at Mr. Wopsle’s aunt’s school, and as a young man, when he takes lessons from Matthew Pocket. Ultimately, through the examples of Joe, Biddy, and Magwitch, Pip learns that social and educational improvement are irrelevant to one’s real worth and that conscience and affection are to be valued above erudition and social standing. Social Class Throughout Great Expectations, Dickens explores the class system of Victorian England, ranging from the most wretched criminals (Magwitch) to the poor peasants of the marsh country (Joe and Biddy) to the middle class (Pumblechook) to the very rich (Miss Havisham). The theme of social class is central to the novel’s plot and to the ultimate moral theme of the book—Pip’s realization that wealth and class are less important than affection, loyalty, and inner worth. Pip achieves this realization when he is finally able to understand that, despite the esteem in which he holds Estella, one’s social status is in no way connected to one’s real character.

Drummle, for instance, is an upper-class lout, while Magwitch, a persecuted convict, has a deep inner worth. Perhaps the most important thing to remember about the novel’s treatment of social class is that the class system it portrays is based on the post-Industrial Revolution model of Victorian England. Dickens generally ignores the nobility and the hereditary aristocracy in favor of characters whose fortunes have been earned through commerce. Even Miss Havisham’s family fortune was made through the brewery that is still connected to her manor. In this way, by connecting the theme of social class to the idea of work and self-advancement, Dickens subtly reinforces the novel’s overarching theme of ambition and self-improvement. Crime, Guilt, and Innocence The theme of crime, guilt, and innocence is explored throughout the novel largely through the characters of the convicts and the criminal lawyer Jaggers. From the handcuffs Joe mends at the smithy to the gallows at the prison in London, the imagery of crime and criminal justice pervades the book, becoming an important symbol of Pip’s inner struggle to reconcile his own inner moral conscience with the institutional justice system.

In general, just as social class becomes a superficial standard of value that Pip must learn to look beyond in finding a better way to live his life, the external trappings of the criminal justice system (police, courts, jails, etc.) become a superficial standard of morality that Pip must learn to look beyond to trust his inner conscience. Magwitch, for instance, frightens Pip at first simply because he is a convict, and Pip feels guilty for helping him because he is afraid of the police. By the end of the book, however, Pip has discovered Magwitch’s inner nobility, and is able to disregard his external status as a criminal. Prompted by his conscience, he helps Magwitch to evade the law and the police. As Pip has learned to trust his conscience and to value Magwitch’s inner character, he has replaced an external standard of value with an internal one. Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes. Doubles One of the most remarkable aspects of Dickens’s work is its structural intricacy and remarkable balance.

Dickens’s plots involve complicated coincidences, extraordinarily tangled webs of human relationships, and highly dramatic developments in which setting, atmosphere, event, and character are all seamlessly fused. In Great Expectations, perhaps the most visible sign of Dickens’s commitment to intricate dramatic symmetry—apart from the knot of character relationships, of course—is the fascinating motif of doubles that runs throughout the book. From the earliest scenes of the novel to the last, nearly every element of Great Expectations is mirrored or doubled at some other point in the book. There are two convicts on the marsh (Magwitch and Compeyson), two invalids (Mrs. Joe and Miss Havisham), two young women who interest Pip (Biddy and Estella), and so on. There are two secret benefactors: Magwitch, who gives Pip his fortune, and Pip, who mirrors Magwitch’s action by secretly buying Herbert’s way into the mercantile business. Finally, there are two adults who seek to mold children after their own purposes: Magwitch, who wishes to “own” a gentleman and decides to make Pip one, and Miss Havisham, who raises Estella to break men’s hearts in revenge for her own broken heart.

Interestingly, both of these actions are motivated by Compeyson: Magwitch resents but is nonetheless covetous of Compeyson’s social status and education, which motivates his desire to make Pip a gentleman, and Miss Havisham’s heart was broken when Compeyson left her at the altar, which motivates her desire to achieve revenge through Estella. The relationship between Miss Havisham and Compeyson—a well-born woman and a common man—further mirrors the relationship between Estella and Pip. This doubling of elements has no real bearing on the novel’s main themes, but, like the connection of weather and action, it adds to the sense that everything in Pip’s world is connected. Throughout Dickens’s works, this kind of dramatic symmetry is simply part of the fabric of his novelistic universe. Comparison of Characters to Inanimate Objects Throughout Great Expectations, the narrator uses images of inanimate objects to describe the physical appearance of characters—particularly minor characters, or characters with whom the narrator is not intimate. For example, Mrs. Joe looks as if she scrubs her face with a nutmeg grater, while the inscrutable features of Mr. Wemmick are repeatedly compared to a letter-box.

This motif, which Dickens uses throughout his novels, may suggest a failure of empathy on the narrator’s part, or it may suggest that the character’s position in life is pressuring them to resemble a thing more than a human being. The latter interpretation would mean that the motif in general is part of a social critique, in that it implies that an institution such as the class system or the criminal justice system dehumanizes certain people. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Satis House In Satis House, Dickens creates a magnificent Gothic setting whose various elements symbolize Pip’s romantic perception of the upper class and many other themes of the book. On her decaying body, Miss Havisham’s wedding dress becomes an ironic symbol of death and degeneration. The wedding dress and the wedding feast symbolize Miss Havisham’s past, and the stopped clocks throughout the house symbolize her determined attempt to freeze time by refusing to change anything from the way it was when she was jilted on her wedding day. The brewery next to the house symbolizes the connection between commerce and wealth: Miss Havisham’s fortune is not the product of an aristocratic birth but of a recent success in industrial capitalism.

Finally, the crumbling, dilapidated stones of the house, as well as the darkness and dust that pervade it, symbolize the general decadence of the lives of its inhabitants and of the upper class as a whole. The Mists on the Marshes The setting almost always symbolizes a theme in Great Expectations and always sets a tone that is perfectly matched to the novel’s dramatic action. The misty marshes near Pip’s childhood home in Kent, one of the most evocative of the book’s settings, are used several times to symbolize danger and uncertainty. As a child, Pip brings Magwitch a file and food in these mists; later, he is kidnapped by Orlick and nearly murdered in them. Whenever Pip goes into the mists, something dangerous is likely to happen. Significantly, Pip must go through the mists when he travels to London shortly after receiving his fortune, alerting the reader that this apparently positive development in his life may have dangerous consequences. Bentley Drummle Although he is a minor character in the novel, Bentley Drummle provides an important contrast with Pip and represents the arbitrary nature of class distinctions.

In his mind, Pip has connected the ideas of moral, social, and educational advancement so that each depends on the others. The coarse and cruel Drummle, a member of the upper class, provides Pip with proof that social advancement has no inherent connection to intelligence or moral worth. Drummle is a lout who has inherited immense wealth, while Pip’s friend and brother-in-law Joe is a good man who works hard for the little he earns. Drummle’s negative example helps Pip to see the inner worth of characters such as Magwitch and Joe, and eventually to discard his immature fantasies about wealth and class in favor of a new understanding that is both more compassionate and more realistic. SATIS HOUSE Inspiration INSPIRATION Dickens and Beyond: Bronte, Austen, and Rhys My novel is, of course, inspired by Great Expectations. But its true source is--as it was for Dickens--Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre. When her novel was published in 1847, Dickens disliked it enough to parody the story, creating a version far less romantic and more attuned to the harsh realities of English Victorian society. There are many parallel characters in the two classics.

I see Miss Havisham, as I believe Dickens did, as a composite of Bronte's tormented Edward Rochester of Thornfield Hall and his wife Bertha Antoinetta Mason, the "mysterious lunatic" secretly kept under lock and key in the mansion's tower. Bronte shows us only Bertha's violent insanity, chalking it up to genetic predisposition, presenting her primarily as an obstacle to the happiness of the virtuous governess Jane Eyre and her employer. But in Wide Sargasso Sea, published in 1966, British author Jean Rhys digs deeper, placing Bertha in the context of her native Jamaica. Through Rhys's 20th-century lens, Bertha's madness becomes an understandable if not logical response to the colonialism and patriarchy that allow her no control over her own destiny. Similarly, Miss Havisham is a casualty of rigid society, but, for me, her madness is also a source of the power she wields over the people around her. Many dismiss her as weak; I see her as incredibly strong-willed and tenacious--the ultimate "drama queen." These contradictions have sparked my curiosity and fueled my imagining of her story.

According to Dickens's timeline notes, Miss Havisham would have been a contemporary of Jane Austen, and so that beloved author's life and works are influencing my narrative as well. Setting: Rochester in Kent, England With a past reaching back to Roman times, the ancient city of Rochester rests alongside the River Medway, just 30 miles east of central London and 45 miles west of the channel ports. It is home to England's second oldest cathedral and a medieval castle that represents one of the country's finest examples of Norman architecture. Charles Dickens lived in the area as a child and as an author, featuring the city and its denizens in a number of his works, including Great Expectations, The Pickwick Papers, and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, his final and incomplete novel. Restoration House, a short walk from the castle and cathedral, served as Dickens's model for Miss Havisham's Satis House. The manor name derives from a stay by Charles II on the eve of his return to the English throne in 1660. Dickens himself was spotted leaning against the iron gates on the day before he died in 1870.

Today visitors can tour the house and gardens, as well as the cathedral and castle. Family Trade: Brewing Who doesn't like beer? It is the world's oldest, most popular, and most fascinating fermented beverage. Man may have begun brewing beer even before he learned to bake bread. The craft figures prominently in English history and in the life of Miss Havisham, whose father was a wealthy brewer. His business adjoined the manor house and provides rich context for the family's story. Content copyright Charles Dickens's Catherine Havisham, Virgin Queen of Satis House | PopMatters Charles Dickens's Catherine Havisham, Virgin Queen of Satis House The madwoman, whether in the attic or the ancestral house, is always a spectacle. I find Miss Havisham to be a troubling enigma. Amazon A wealthy old spinster who lives in a crumbling mansion named Satis House, jilted at the altar and still wearing her wedding dress, hell bent on revenge on all men. When Pip in Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations meets Miss Havisham, she has an entire reputation to live up to.

The village gossip has made her larger than life; a witch of outsized proportions who is not just mad, but mad in a particularly female way. All we know of Miss Havisham we see through Pip’s eyes—what hangs over her is the spectre of soured sexuality, ruined before its prime. No self-respecting nubile young girl would want to be her. Heterosexual manly-men, who should like their women soft, yielding, and accommodating, must run from her or gawk from afar. Dickens, being Dickens, was able to write a brutal yet tender representation of a scorned, damaged woman that seemed like both of an indictment of the patriarchal culture that made her that way while simultaneously indulging in the misogyny that sees her as aberrant, even abject. Miss Havishams abound in a heterosexist culture. In our present lives, however, we might be hard-pressed to find a woman who stops all the clocks because she’s been hurt in love and betrayed by the man she trusted completely. Modern-day Miss Havishams would be given a stern talking to on television by Dr.

Phil, encouraged to hit the gym again, work on their self-confidence, enjoy the finer things in life that their wealth is able to buy them, “lean in” and hang on to a career ladder—any ladder—for dear life. Dickens’s Miss Havisham kept her wedding feast rotting with maggots for all to see, wore her wedding dress for the rest of her life, and never let the sunlight in. In modern parlance, she “let herself go”, leaned so far back she disappeared from the public eye. The madwoman, whether in the attic or the ancestral house, is always a spectacle. I find Miss Havisham to be a troubling enigma. I wanted to know more about her, but Dickens was content to let her manipulate her adoptive daughter Estella’s charms in order wreak havoc on men’s lives, but there is a price to pay for even that. Vengeful women find that anger is no way out, eventually. The world finds a way to put Miss Havisham in place, and the same goes for Estella—who, trained to be a potent weapon against male power, finally finds herself susceptible to the charms of an abusive asshole and marries him.

Scottish writer Ronald Frame, in Havisham, traces Miss Havisham’s back story in an elegant, stylised novel that gives us more of Catherine Havisham without giving us too much. The result is odd and alluring, imperfect and unforgettable. Havisham takes us from Catherine Havisham’s younger days, just after her mother’s day, and her strange and silent upbringing in a brewer’s house. Her father secretly remarries the family cook, and Catherine learns of this marriage through a pared-down dialogue between father and daughter that occurs after this second wife dies. She also learns about her half-brother, Arthur, who will grow up to be a layabout who schemes with Charles Compeyson, the man Catherine loves and is about to marry, until Compeyson swindles her out of some money and leaves her stranded at the altar. Catherine’s first love isn’t Compeyson, however, but her first (and only) female friend named Sally—who, being the daughter of an employee at the brewery, is below her in station.

Frame’s careful drawing out of their young friendship hits a tender note with an undertone of menace, befitting a female friendship where one woman has all the power because of money and social position and the other does not. They play games with each other, games tinged with this imbalance; when Catherine playfully holds Sally’s wrists down and teases her, she thinks of Sally as “my captive”, prefiguring her future treatment of Estella. Throughout Catherine’s growth, Frame presents a woman who is well-aware of her worth in terms of class position. He doesn’t sentimentalise Catherine by trying to make her insipidly likeable, or worse, cute. The Catherine of Havisham is proud and arrogant, and constantly thinking about the ways in which she must live up to it. She’s also sharp and intelligent and preternaturally self-aware: But I’m not a face, or a body. I’m a Havisham. My appearance is wrapped around with an aura of wealth (provincial, not metropolitan; but money is money) and high living (vulgar rather than sophisticated; but time, between one generation and the next, is the best civiliser). I don’t need to be a beauty.

Yet no one, except some person ignorant of my name, would consider me less than handsome. Perhaps this is why, when she’s older, Catherine would assume that bestowing Estella with the wealth of Havisham money, and its attendant name, would work together with Estella’s beauty to produce the perfect female weapon: one who would not be in need of a man or desperate for one, but one who would use them and discard them. The heart, however, continues to beat—and wants what it does not want. Or does it? Frame is astute in depicting a Catherine who snubs the attention of a young male acquaintance who lacks not intelligence or virtue, only physical charms, in favour of the brighter, strong-jawed, more conventionally-handsome son of Lady Chadwyck, whose family estate Catherine resides in for a period of time in order to acquire an education of aristocratic manners and polish. That Catherine is susceptible to male beauty and wants the best for herself sets her apart from other girls who are trained to know their place, but much of it has to do—as Catherine has already told us—with her name and aura of wealth (“money is money”).

She wants the best because her class position allows her to imagine she can have it. When Compeyson arrives at the scene, the reader is already aware that Catherine is ripe for the plucking because she is susceptible—she craves attention and beauty, and all her intelligence and self-knowledge can’t protect her from herself. What’s also particularly jarring is how alone Catherine really is in the world; both her gender and her class position prevents her from being able to know others well, and the one friend whom she thought was true, Sally, turns out to have had other thoughts about the friendship. Frame neither indicts nor supports Catherine or Sally; one feels for Catherine, certainly, but one also feels for Sally—who wants to be a friend to a woman who is rich enough to keep you captive? This aloneness, Frame suggests, is dangerous. We only know who we are when amongst others. The tone of Frame’s writing recalls Jean Rhys’s in Wide Sargasso Sea, if more minimalist; both novels eschew the straightforward realism of the original novels in order to capture more vividly the psychic landscape and subsequent breakdown of its central characters.

It works, for the most part, but the towards the last quarter of the book, when the timespan of Havisham merges with that of Great Expectations, Catherine starts becoming a caricature of herself. At this point, having loved and lost and inherited her father’s brewery business, she does not morph into the kick-ass independent woman of liberal feminist dreams but wills herself into becoming a ghost. “Again and again I replayed my life, on a long continuum of time, where my future was nothing other than the past”, she says, after having asserted herself in front of our eyes: “Look at me, in my train and veil. Tell me what magic you see. This is awful damage that men do”. Indeed, they do awful damage, but I’m also distressed about a retelling of Miss Havisham that only leaves her where she began—at the behest of men, be it powerful patriarchs or deceptive seducers.

Perhaps there is no other outcome for Catherine, trapped as she is between one man’s desire and the next, between her father’s desire that she should be a proper young lady, and a potential husband’s desire for her name and money, and now, some might say, by a male novelist’s desire to tell her story. When Dickens wants you to think that Miss Havisham was a desperate, sad manipulator who was adept at pulling the strings of young people, trampling over the buds of young love like the loveless spinster everyone thinks she is, Frame shows us that she was not only acutely aware of Pip’s desire for her beloved Estella, but sensitive to it, slowly coming to regret and agonise over her actions. What does it mean that a rich woman like Miss Havisham, used and abused by a man, enacts her revenge on a young boy from an impoverished background? What to make of these people, rich older women who think they can engineer whole lives—who ask, “Who am I to be kind?”—and bright-eyed young men, good-intentioned or not, who think female beauty is theirs for the taking?

Frame’s novel is an elegy for Miss Havisham and Estella, and also Pip, in a way, and it leaves us with no clear resolution. It shows us the implications of both the class and gender war: ruined lives and so many deferred dreams, circulating among the living as dread, guilt, and regret. Perhaps Catherine—Miss Havisham, in the end—was trying to do it right: when you’ve known love, even if it has killed you, it is still a thing worth commemorating. That’s the tragedy of Havisham; that the awful damage that men do is bound up with the love that women feel, and with every new (retold) story, you wonder if this is always to be a woman’s undoing. Havisham Rating: Subashini Navaratnam is a copywriter from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia who occasionally blogs . She can also be found on Twitter .

Share via Subversion of Gender Identity in Great Expectations Subversion of Gender Identity in Great Expectations Alexa Van Brunt '04, English 156 , Brown University, 2004 [ Victorian Web Home —> Authors —> Charles Dickens —> Works —> Great Expectations —> Gender Matters —> Theme and Subject ] In Great Expectations, Charles Dickens subverts stereotypical Victorian ideals of motherhood, femininity, and masculinity while concurrently maintaining his characters within the overarching strict framework of a gendered society in nineteenth-century England. In one sense, the actors in Dicken's work do maintain their gendered identities and live within the prescribed social space appropriate to each sex. Females in the novel are indubitably confined to the domestic realm throughout the book. Ms. Havisham is an extreme example of this reality, as she has not left Satis House since the morning when she was abandoned by her callous, pilfering fiancé. Pip's sister, Mrs.

Joe Gargery, repetitively emphasizes her confinement to the forge, evidenced by such complaints as, “Perhaps if I warn't a blacksmith's wife, and (what's the same thing) a slave with her apron never off, I should have been to hear the Carols" (23). Biddy's persona is defined by her role as a domestic servant — her life revolves around hearth and home. And Estella, though more widely traveled than other the other women in the book, is confined between locations of a foreign school, Satis House, and Mrs. Brandley's home in Richmond. In contrast, the Dickensian menfolk are more or less free to go at will. Though Joe Gargery's movements are strongly confined by his wife's dictates, Joe still has the liberty to escape to the Three Jolly Bargemen or attend errands uptown on occasion. Pip, though also suffering the demands of his sister's will, is also free to attend night school, play upon the marshes and attend Ms. Havisham's house at Satis “for the good of the family".

The males residing in London have an innate freedom to come and go as they will, as Wemmick and Jaggers are both bachelors, unconstrained by domestic demands or female counterparts. Herbert, though poor, is also at liberty to do what he pleases during his residence in Barnard's Inn. However, though this notion of gendered space does effectively concur with Victorian modes of masculine and feminine propriety, it also contrasts sharply with more essential gender relations in the novel. Many of Dicken's female characters exist as an antithesis to Victorian ideals of fair womanhood and angelic femininity, while many of the male personages take on definitively female roles in the course of the novel. Pip himself is explicitly affected by this confusion of gender identity, and seems caught between prescriptions of masculine strength and feminine vulnerability during the course of his interactions with the strong female characters of Great Expectations. Mrs. Joe Gargery, though adept at housekeeping at the forge, is very much the “man of the house".

Pip describes his sister as a woman with “black hair and eyes" and a face with “such a prevailing redness of skin that I sometimes used to wonder whether it was possible she washed herself with a nutmeg-grater instead of soap. She was tall and bony, and almost always wore a coarse apron, fastened over her figure behind with two loops, and having a square, impregnable bib in front that was stuck full of pins and needles." (13). Furthermore, Mrs. Gargery's appearance is supplemented by such unmotherly declarations as “I may truly say that I've never had this apron of mine off, since born you were. It's bad enough to be a blacksmith's wife (and him a Gargery), without being your mother" (14). In similar fashion, Ms. Havisham inhabits the adornments of Victorian femininity, but Pip portrays this garb once again in a singularly unwomanly fashion. It was not in the first moments that I saw all these things, though I saw more of them in the first moments than might be supposed.

But, I saw that everything within my view which ought to be white, had been white long a go, and had lost its luster, and was faded and yellow. I saw that the bride within the bridal dress had withered like the dress, and like the flowers, and had no brightness left but the brightness of her sunken eyes. I saw that the dress had been put upon the rounded figure of a young woman, and that the figure upon which it now hung loose, had shrunk to skin and bone. [Ch 8; Place in the complete text of the novel in which this passage appears ] Finally, Estella is neither docile nor a fragile flower of Victorian femininity. She is a “femme fatale", who is repeatedly cajoled by Ms. Havisham to wreak havoc on the hearts of the opposite sex.

And sometimes, when her moods were so many and so contradictory of one another than I was puzzled what to say or do, Miss Havisham would embrace her [Estella] with lavish fondness, murmuring something in her ear that sounded like, “Break their hearts, my pride and hope, break their hearts and have no mercy!" [77] Questions How do the physical descriptions of the female characters depict such women in a masculine fashion? How do the male characters in Dicken's work provide a visible contrast to such masculine portraitures of the female characters? Ex. Joe, Herbert, Matthew Pocket, etc. What is Dicken's purpose in subverting stereotypical notions of Victorian gender identity and relations in Great Expectations? Do you think that the author does actually mean to oppose such stereotypes in the novel, or do you believe that they are actually upheld in the course of the novel? Is gendered space stronger than gendered disposition? Do you feel Estella and Ms. Havisham present an antithetical example of Victorian femininity? Or are these characters actually indicative of the feminine plight in the nineteenth-century English societal setting? How is Pip's gender identity contradicted and affirmed throughout the novel?

How is he conflicted about his place in a gender-divided society, both growing up at the forge and during his life in London? References Free Satis House Essays A Home Filled with Love People treasure their houses and most often houses become homes filled with love. This makes it very difficult to leave their houses in which they have lived all their life. This happens to the elderly a lot when they can no longer take care of themselves and are forced to leave their homes and m ... "Satis house is an elaborate example of a figurative technique constantly employed by Dickens: the use of houses to symbolize the state of the soul. ... Havisham's house is called the "Satis House". ... She wants to make certain that her betrayal will be the whole meaning of her life"(Miller 189) The Satis house has no sunlight entering it and is only lighted with candles. ... Havisham dies, the Satis house dies with her physical, emotional, and spiritual state of mind.Wemmick and his castle represents his separation of private and business life. ... Havisham and her Satis house are b...

Wordcount: 1351 Miss Havisham's Eccentric Charater Miss Havisham is an extremely eccentric character. She is a rich andgrim lady who lived in a large and dismal house. One way she was eccentricwas the Satis House. Another is the weird birthday party Miss Havisham hadwith her relatives. She also acts in a weird way that tells her apart fromt ... She is a rich andgrim lady who lived in a large and dismal house. One way she was eccentricwas the Satis House. ... Miss Havisham's house is a dark and spooky house. ... There were no pigeons inthe house, no horses in the stable, no pigs in the sty, no malt in thestore house, no smell of grain and beer in the copper or the vat. ... One reason is the Statis House and all the weird thingsoccurring in and out of the house. ... Wordcount: 525 Great Expectations: A Tale Of Two Characters A Tale of Two CharactersAs the man's feet gently weaved through all of the fallen and crumbling remnants of the once fine establishment Satis House, he thought of his life filled with ironies and regret.

He was once arrogant and also very much an elitist, the man was once ashamed of his past and onl ... A Tale of Two CharactersAs the man's feet gently weaved through all of the fallen and crumbling remnants of the once fine establishment Satis House, he thought of his life filled with ironies and regret. ... The man now stood at the old house that had changed him so greatly and now made his way around the estate. ... Wordcount: 890 Ralph Waldo Emerson "Great Expectations" Ralph Waldo Emerson said," Treat a man as he is, and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he could be, and he will become what he should be." In Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations, the reader follows Pip through his struggle with his own expectations of himself and what he thinks is expect ... Miss Havisham, a sad, rich old woman, invites Pip to play at Satis House, the mansion where she lives. ... His days at Satis House end but he continues to dream of a life of riches and culture. ... Joe does, however, mention during his visit that Estella has returned to Satis House and would like to see Pip.

Pip leaves for Satis House the next day. ... He visited her in the house where she had been placed and was often called by Miss Havishum to accompany Estella home to Satis House. ... Wordcount: 2852 A Chapter Summary Notes of Great Expectations Great Expectations NotesChapter 1Setting: early in the 1800s; Churchyard in tiny village east of London Joe Gargey and her husband in the Marshes. His parents died Pip- Phillip Pirrap- main character- 7 years old- Lives w/ sister Mrs. when he was younger One time while vis ...

Wopsle's great aunt's school When Uncle Joe was a kid, he had parents who drank heavily and so Joe didn't attend school Miss Havisham- rich and grim lady who lives in a large and dismal house barricated against robbers Pip is invited to play at her house, but he doesn't know whyChapter 7Setting: At Miss H's Satis house: We meet Miss h and Estella* Uncle Pumblechook takes Pip to her house Miss H's house had many iron bars and some windows were walled up Estella lets Pip in the gate; She is very pretty and proud Estell... Wordcount: 4452 The Great Expectations There are many common, familiar cliches about illusion versus truth. "All that glitters is not gold" and "Things are seldom what they seem" are the most universal hackneyed phrases, but they do not cover entirely every aspect of appearance versus reality. In Charles Dickens' novel, Great Expectation ... Pip grew up the beginning of his life in two places: the forge and Satis House. ...

Satis house, the home of the Havishams, seemed like it should have the appearance of an upper-class home: much more comfortable and wonderful than a lower class home because of the money that the Havishams possessed. Satis means "enough" and that "whoever had this house could want nothing else." (66) The appearance that this house would be "enough" for the Havishams shows what kind of people that they really are in reality. Satis house was "of old brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. Some of... Wordcount: 1660 An Essay of V In the following essay I will compare the characters of Biddy and Estella and will discuss what Dickens was trying to illustrate by using these two characters.Estella and Biddy are two of the main female characters in 'Great Expectations'. Charles Dickens uses both of them to emphasise many of Pip's ... Pip's approach to Biddy changes very abruptly after his visits to 'Satis House'. ...

Estella is a cold young woman and the first real introduction of this theme, is when Pip calls Estella 'Satis House', "and her light came along the dark passage like a star." ... Even though Estella continually reinforces into the reader her arrogant manner by repeatedly calling Pip 'boy' and ridiculing how he talks and dresses, i.e. thick course boots.Estella constantly taunted Pip on that first meeting at 'Satis House'"Why don't you cry?""... Wordcount: 794 Story of a Young Boy in the Great Expectations Great Expectations which was set in Victorian England tells thestory of a young boys struggles in life. Pip, a young orphan who liveswith his older sister is seated the cemetery looking at his parents graveswhen Magwich an escaped convict attacks Pip and orders him to bringfood and a file for his le ... Pip soon goes to a play at theSatis House where he meets Mrs. ... While at the Satis House Pip meets a young girl named Estella whotreats him coldly, but Pip can't help his attraction to Estella and oneday hopes that he will become a wealthy gentleman so he might have achance with her. ...

Pip runs intoEstella at the Satis House and finds out that her cruelness and hatredhave turned into love. ... Wordcount: 565 "Great Expectations" of Charles Dickens "Dickens, in Great Expectations, presents us with a range of ideas, but the most powerful is that the individual is shaped by the worlds they live in and the experiences they have." To what extent did you find this to be true?To what extent one's environment and life experiences shape the individua ... When Pip stops chasing unachievable dreams and finally realises what the true values of life are, the characteristics we have always seen in Joe begin to appear in Pip Satis House, the world of Miss Havisham and the entrancing beauty Estella, forms an integral part in Pip's great expectations. Here Pip is exposed to the so called 'good life' and through his time at Satis House, begins to forget all that Joe has taught him. ... The change is truly noted when Pip returns home from Satis house, when he converses with Biddy. ... Miss Havisham's intentions towards me, all a m...

Wordcount: 2290 Great Expectations is of No Exception In great expectations Dickens judges his characters not on social position or upbringing but on their treatment of one another. Do you agree?Throughout his prosperous career as a writer, Charles Dickens took a literacy stance on the values and social status of society in London in the 19th century. ... Havisham when Pip enters Satis House in chapter 8. ... Miss Havisham's house, which was old brick, and dismal, and had a great many iron bars to it. ... Joe's value towards Pip, however, was to infuse the materialistic implications of life and exposed him to the evils of Satis House. ... This is fundamentally due to Pip finding difficulty and alienation to relate with Joe, his only real friend, and thus a build up of emotion starts to form in Pip.Through the chain of events from Satis House to moving to London, away from Joe and the forge to peruse his great expectations, Pip can be ...

Wordcount: 1219 Great Expectations: Reasons of Pip's Transition into Snobbery "Pip changes from an innocent child to a character consumed by false values and snobbery." Explore the major incidents in Pip's childhood that contribute to this change. Pip's transition into snobbery is, I believe, a steady one from the moment that he first meets Miss Havisham and Estella. Even b ... At Satis House it is almost straight away made clear to him from Estella's language, both body and spoken, that she considers him to be inferior. ... From these experiences Pip finds out about what he considers polite society, but Satis House is a place where society is anything but polite. ... Yet without a doubt the major incidents that lead to the formation of the "gentleman" that Pip becomes took place at Miss Havisham's house in the company of Estella.... Wordcount: 691 Miss Havisham as a Puppetmaster. A great many readers would characterize Miss Havisham as a puppetmaster.

It is plain to see that she is manipulating and brainwashing her adopted daughter Estella in order to live vicariously through her, since her physically and evidently emotionally withered body and mind will not allow her to tak ... In the climactic chapter, when Pip meets her for the last time, Miss Havisham realizes her wrongs, shows heartfelt sorrow, and attempts to make amends, and her burning at the chapter's close symbolizes her purification.Pip returns to Satis House for the first time in a very long while. ... He reenters Satis House to find Miss Havisham lost in contemplation before a fire. ... Apparently, Pip also finds it difficult to leave so suddenly, so he opts for a final walk through the grounds of Satis House. ... Wordcount: 1228 Symbolism Depicted in the Great Expectations Need A Termpaper?Great Expectations: SymbolismIn life, symbolism is present all around us. Whether it is in the clothes wewear, the things we do, or what we buy, everything has a meaning. Symbolism isalso present in literature and it is shown in Charles Dickens Great Expectations.The symbols of isol ...

Onhis first visit to the Satis House, Pip overheard Miss Havisham tell Estella"Well? ... It also depicted thestate of the Satis House, where she was isolated from the rest of society. ... Wordcount: 782 Essay on Great Expectations Rough Draft EssayShy, gentle, content, all words that describe Pip, the main character of Charles Dickens , Great Expectations. In time, this dynamic character's life would change incredibly, not all for the better. Pip's character would change from his shy, gentle, and content ways, to being discon ... During Pip's visit to the Satis house, he encountered a beautiful girl by the name of Estella. ... Wordcount: 318 The Great Expectations: True Story of Love and Happiness In Great Expectations, Pip, the protagonist and narrator of the story grows from a young child to a mannerly gentleman with high social status. Throughout the story he goes through many changes. However, in the end it turns out that Pip was handed too much too quickly. Bad fortune falls upon him and ...

One day Pip is taken by his arrogant uncle Uncle Pumblechook to play at Satis House, the home of the wealthy Miss Havisham. ... For a good time Pip travels back and fourth to the Satis house to visit Miss Havisham and he becomes closely acquainted with her. ... But returning to Kent years later, he meets Estella in the ruined garden at Satis House. ... Wordcount: 1549 Great Expectations Plot SummaryGreat Expectations is the story of Pip, an orphan boy adopted by a blacksmith's family, who has good luck and great expectations, and then loses both his luck and his expectations. Through this rise and fall, however, Pip learns how to find happiness. He learns the meaning of friendship ... Pip's life changes when he is brought to Miss Havisham's place, a mansion called the "Satis House," where sunshine never enters. ... Wordcount: 381 Mrs. Havisham's Legacy in The Great Expectations Through out our lives, symbolism presents itself all around. Every object in the world and every action has a meaning behind it. Symbolism is everything and everywhere including in the novels people read.

Often we do not realize these symbols, however it is clear that it is present though out our so ... On his first visit to the Satis House, Pip overhears Miss Havisham tell Estella "Well? ... It also tells the state of the Satis House, where she had isolated herself from the rest of the world. Throughout the novel, house is used as a metaphor with Mrs. ... Wordcount: 871 Great Expectations Chapter 1Pip has a sense of longing for parenting, this is shown by him talking about his parents.He has no sense of identity, this is shown in the first paragraph where Pip introduces himself and says that he could not pronounce his name(Philip Pirrip) more than Pip. The set ... .As Pip runs back home from the churchyard he very briefly describes how Joe's forge adjoined the wooden house they lived in. ... ************************************************************************Chapter 3In this chapter pip has just gotten out of Ms Gargery's house, with the food he stole and is off to meet the convict. ...

He sort of believes, that as soon as he walks off the house with his sisters food, that everyone can sense that he is a thief and start accusing him of stealing. ... When Pip slips into the house, he finds no policemen, only Mrs Joe busy in the kitc... Wordcount: 9203 God's Law and Human Law in The Great Expectations Great ExpectationsIn his book Great Expectations, the problematic nature of moral judgement and justice that stems from a conflict between God's law and human law is one of several topical themes that Charles Dickens addresses. This paradox regularly surfaces in his treatment of plot and setting, an ... In preparation for his first visit to Satis House, Pip recalls how he "...was put into clean linen of the stiffestcharacter, like a young penitent into sackcloth, and was trussed up in my tightest and fearfullest suit [and] delivered to Mr. ... When he returns from the Satis House, he tells outrageous lies about his experience there, and admits this to Joe later. ... Wordcount: 2752 Charles Dickens: Illustrator of Character The author Charles Dickens was a talented illustrator of character. Throughout his novel Great Expectations he presents this gift by creating several unique characters.

A dominant character throughout the novel is Estella, adopted daughter of the eccentric Miss Havisham. Estella is cold-hearted, a v ... When Estella and Pip meet again at Satis House, Estella reveals she has learned how to love, and what it feels like to be hurt. ... Wordcount: 470 A Review on The Great Expectation's Revised Edition I personally preferred the revised chapter rather than the original one. This is because the original was not descriptive enough and covered a lot of ground in a very short space of time. In the published ending, Pip returns after eleven years to visit Biddy and Joe. Their son, little Pip, repres ... When Pip visits the ruins of Satis house, you cannot help thinking of his false expectations and his ruined life. ... Wordcount: 472 Great Expectations In the novel "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens, guilt is a common feeling that is displayed by the characters throughout the novel. Guilt proves to have both positive and negative consequences surrounding the main characters. The constant suffering of the characters throughout the novel are in ...

Joe-I never thought I was going to rob Joe, for I never thought of any of the house-keeping property as his,"(pg.11). ... After giving the requested food and file to the convict, Pip immediately had feelings of guilt and as a result was expecting for the police to be awaiting him at his house when he got home. ... The theme of the social class also encouraged Pip's guilt, especially when he visited the Satis house. ... Wordcount: 755 "Great Expectations" Life Importance while Concerning their Structure GREAT EXPECTATIONSThe major themes from Charles Dickens novel "Great Expectations" are discussed to their importance in life while concerning their structure.Out of these many themes I have chosen love in the context of human relationships, isolation and finally redemption. While in the state of is ...

While in the state of isolation the loneliness that you bring upon yourself can only be redeemed by the opposite sex.The greatest sin we can commit against ourselves and others while in the state of isolation is by shunning the human companionship as the old lady Miss Haversham had already done.After Compeyson,her fiance, left her standing at the alter Miss Haversham felt she had been betrayed in love and hardened her heart towards man.By hardening her heart and suppressing her naturally affectionate nature,she committed a crime against herself.Miss Haversham's love for Compeyson was one ... Wordcount: 784 Quality of True Love Rough DraftBrooke Gladstone5/17/2000Period #3What is true love?The quality of true love is highly debated among different people. Some peoplebelieve true love relies on rules or that it simply does not exist. However, true love is anunconditional love between two people, when two people love each ot ... Biddy hasalways been around the family to help in the house while Mrs. ...

Pip visits Satis Houseand she is wearing her wedding dress, she has the wedding cake on the dining roomtable, and the clock is stopped at the time she was left at the altar. ... Wordcount: 672 Charles Dickens and Rochester. Description Bull Hotel Dickens stayed here many times and the inn was used in both the Pickwick Papers and Great Expectations. Chatham Neighbouring town where Dickens lived from the age of 5-10. Eastgate House Featured in the Dickens novels The Pickwick Papers and Edwin Drood. Minor Canon Row In the novel Edmund Drood, Reverend Septimus Crisparkle lives in this picturesque row. Restoration House, Rochester. Dickens partly used Restoration House as a model for Miss Havisham's Satis House in Great Expectations . Satis House Dickens used Satis House in Great Expectations as Miss Havisham's ruined estate. Six Poor Travellers House Symbols - Great Expectations Great Expectations Contact Us Symbols Symbols are objects or characters used to represent something more significant than itself.

Great Expectations cleverly uses a number of these, explained below: The rising mists Miss Havisham's shoe and wedding dress The Satis House Bentley Drummle and the stopped clocks Light and darkness The Rising Mists The Rising Mists Dickens’ uses pathetic fallacy by the mists to demonstrate clarity of thinking. Whenever the mists rise, Pip is able to see things around him clearly. When the mists are present, they can symbolize danger and uncertainty like when Magwitch attacks Pip, shortly after arriving in London or before the attack of Orlick. The rising mists are also used in the last sentence of the novel when Pip sees “no shadow of another parting from [Estella]”. Miss Havisham's Shoe and Wedding Dress Shoe and Wedding Dress Miss Havisham had only put on one shoe before finding out that Compeyson had left her on their wedding day. This shoe represents her lack of readiness for any further attempts at love in her life and it demonstrates this for Estella also when she picks it up while talking to Pip. Miss Havisham’s wedding dress represents death and the pain or rotting of her past.

The Satis House The Satis House The mason where Miss Havisham and Estella live is wealthy but crumbling and deteriorating showing a direct connection to those who live in it and to the upper class society as a whole. Miss Havisham's Garden The Satis Garden Everything in the Satis garden is dead or decaying. None of the plants or flowers are growing, making a correlation to wealth and high society. It may suggest that the innocence or love can no longer thrive. The Stopped Clocks The Stopped Clocks The clocks symbolize Miss Havisham’s desperate attempts at freezing time and refusal to change. However, both as we all know is impossible to do. They are stopped at ten past ten, the moment at which Miss Havisham had realized that her fiance had run off and stolen her money. Bentley Drummle And The Upper Class Bentley Drummle Drummle is the perfect poster boy for wealth, success and gentleman statuses. He is however, rude and cruel to all those he feels are beneath him and only fights for Estella to later abuse her. He is the perfect example to show that there is no correlation between social standing and intelligence or morals.

Light And Darkness Light and Darkness Dickens uses the ever so famous archetype of light to represent the goodness and dark to represent the evil or unknown. Joe’s character almost emits light to guide Pip along the way while the Satis House is almost completely dark. Locks and Keys Locks and Keys Locks represent things of secrecy or inaccessibility. Magwitch, being a criminal, is kept behind bars where he cannot escape, as he does not hold the keys. Estella is almost portrayed as a prison guard herself for Miss Havisham keeps her locked away emotionally. Estella is also like a gatekeeper for she lets Pip in and out of the Satis House, holding onto the keys. As they grow older, Estella keeps the keys to her heart, not letting it be accessible to anyone else. Bugs and Insects Bugs and Insects The creepy crawly insects represent the disgusting or filthy things in life. Throughout the Satis House are spiders and beetles that occupy it, creating a sickening illusion. Also, when Pip questions Estella about Drummle, she says, “Moths and all sorts of ugly creatures hover above a lighted candle but can the candle help it?” suggesting that Drummle is the ugly creature.

Statues Statue Whenever Pip kisses Estella’s cheek, he mentions that the cheek seems to feel like a statue. Statues are hard and cold materials, perhaps representing that Estella indeed is not warm and incapable of feelings. Weather Rainstorm Dickens’ uses a lot of pathetic fallacy by creating a very sullen atmosphere without sun or clear blue days but often only rain and thunderstorms. Furthermore, whenever anything tragic or exciting happens, there seems to be a change in the weather. Shadows Estella's shadow Dickens’ uses the idea of shadows to suggest mystery or evilness. Pip often notices a shadow across Estella’s face and seems to suggest that she has a very dark side to her. Pip also shows that he realizes that everyone has a complex character and are composed of both shadows and light. Joe Gargery Joe's Happy Face Joe Gargery is the ultimate symbol of good and caring in a world surrounded by of evil and deceit. He puts up with Mrs. Joe in the foulest of her moods and continues to support and care for Pip even after he had been tossed aside. Create a free website

Question: In a Dickens novel, who lived at Satis House?
Answer: MISS HAVISHAM